Driveway Cracked? Quickrete Can Help

Fri., June 27, 1997

By Susan English susane@spokesman.com

You can’t do much about the cracks and potholes in the streets in Spokane, so here’s a chance to fix your own driveway easily.

A new latex blacktop crack seal and blacktop patch is available from Quickrete. The crack seal repairs cracks up to a half-inch wide. The patch material is designed for larger repair jobs.

The products are available at home centers or call the Quikrete consumer line at (800) 282-5828.

‘Water me, water me’

Vacation plans are made and you’re pulling out of the driveway; can you hear the flowers crying out in distress? All it takes is a couple of 80-degree days while you are away and your carefully tended garden is toast.

Travel plans should include garden care. A few tips for getting your garden through your vacation:

Move containers and hanging baskets to a single spot in the shade near a water source and ask a neighbor to stop by at least twice a week (more if temperatures soar or there’s a windy day) and water them.

Before you leave, pinch back plants prone to be leggy and you’ll have bushier plants as a result. Deadhead blooming plants before you go to promote another round of blooms.

Leave written directions near any special-care plants.

For free

A free 20-page booklet on faux finishes is available from The Flood Company, a paint manufacturer. “Faux Finishing Guide” includes instructions for sponging, ragging and combing paint. For a copy, call (800) 321-3444 or on the Web at www.floodco.com.

Try these on for size

One of the gardening mavens here at the newspaper has tried out a pair of the new Ultimate Gardening Gloves and is singing their praise.

The cotton gloves have a textured coating on the palm to protect your hands from thorns and mud. The gloves are available at some garden centers or from the company for $10. (We found they run large.) Call Ultimate Goods at (888) 880-1997 or on the Web at www.ultimategoods.com.

Crafts that stick together

The home designers at Velcro USA are offering a free booklet that details four home decorating projects that revolve around a very sticky subject - Velcro, what else?

“Ideas and Accents” offers complete step-by-step instructions for making a fabric shower door cover-up, fabric room divider, circus tent ceiling for a child’s room, and a custom bed canopy. The booklet also includes general decorating tips using Velcro.

For your copy of the booklet, write to Velcro Booklet, P.O. Box 6441, Dept. D-2, Riverton, NJ 08077-6441.

Help for gardeners

A gardener’s proud battle scars once were callused hands, grimy fingernails and scratches.

But this spring has seen a raft of new cosmetic products for gardeners aimed at restoring the cultivator’s most important tools. Crabtree & Evelyn, the international toiletry company, has introduced six products, including a sunscreen, a skin salve, and vegetable soaps.

Thymes Limited has produced a Vital Thymes Gardener’s Hand Set with a pumice soap and restorative lotion. A third brand of lotion, Proteque, repels bacteria and allergens, according to its maker, Proteque International, of Raleigh, N.C.

Your tax dollars at work

In the nick of time, Congress has come up with the funding to restore the crumbling United States Botanic Garden in Washington D.C.

A $33.5 million appropriation was tacked on to the $8.6 billion disaster-relief bill passed by Congress and signed by the president June 13. Most of the money will help communities in 35 states rebuild from natural calamities. The botanic garden appropriation will pay for the major renovation of America’s oldest continually operating botanic garden.

The conservatory now will close around Labor Day, opening in its rebuilt form in about 2-1/2 years, said project architect Marc Tartaro. Once the building is closed, the palms, cycads, cacti, ferns and other rare and exotic plant collections will be moved to the botanic garden’s greenhouses

The rebuilt botanic garden will look the same from the outside, but its interior spaces and exhibits will be upgraded, the glasshouses reglazed, lead and asbestos removed, and new heating, ventilation and other systems installed. The conservatory opened in 1933.

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